


The End

by DustToDust



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-10
Updated: 2013-12-10
Packaged: 2018-01-04 07:15:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1078108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DustToDust/pseuds/DustToDust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one can stop can stop the way the world slowly withers and dies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The End

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I feel like a little bit of a gut punch today.

"Follow me."

It’s an order and a plea all at once. Steel wrapped up with a longing that makes his heart and throat ache. Tim holds himself utterly still under the force of it. His eyes sliding closed as he listens to the echoes of those words die in the heavy stillness of the Cave. Thick and unbroken. Growing even thicker as Tim remains silent. He can feel the weight of the words on him. Like eyes staring hard at his back. Weighing his reaction and silently pushing for an answer.

Tim breathes through his nose. A slow count in and a slow count out.

He opens his eyes and turns. Spins the chair away from the computer to face the back of the Cave. The bank of glass cases. Lined up precisely and displaying the uniforms of everyone who-

Of everyone.

Tim gets up and walks towards them. Ignoring the half finished report because it really doesn’t matter anymore does it? There’s no one to read over them when he’s done. There’s no one even left in the world for him to train to make use of them. The world is dying. Is actually already dead despite the few hold outs too stubborn to simply _accept_ that.

He’s not one of them. Not one of the people working to stem the horrible tide of death that walks rotten corpses across the world. Sucking the life from the soil and ripping the life out of anything living. Tim knows that it can’t be stopped. Knew it the moment Dick’s eyes opened again despite the gaping hole in his throat, and tried to put a matching hole in Tim.

Tim presses his hand against the case holding the Nightwing costume. He put it next to the Batgirl case after he put a hologram of the Oracle mask in Babs’ case. There were no bodies left for them to bury from the first wave. They hadn’t been able to risk it then. Not when they didn’t know what would keep the dead from rising.

They’d been able to bury Damian and Steph together. Bruce had insisted on it. Had dug the hole himself with Jason and Tim watching as Alfred wrapped them in sheets with trembling fingers. Grief, they had thought, until the older man excused himself a few days later. Never saying anything about the bite that had been slowly poisoning him. The one that no one had found a cure for. Bruce had noted with a blankness that hurt that one of the hunting rifles only Alfred ever touched was missing. Jason had been the one to find Alfred in the woods a day later, and he hadn’t said a single thing to Tim or Bruce until he had Alfred wrapped in a blanket and refused to let either of them see anything.

They never heard from Cass after the second wave swept through the world, and Superman only gave Bruce a sad look when Bruce demanded he find her.

It wasn’t until the first wave of evacuations began that Bruce cracked. He’d been grim and quiet since they’d burned Dick and Babs. Which only got worse with each person they lost. With each hero who died, with each civilian that turned. Bruce almost stopped talking when they laid Alfred between Damian and Steph behind the manor.

Lanterns swarmed the world. Holding the dead at bay and pulling uninfected people away by the hundreds. It was a small drop in an overwhelming wave, but they all worked hard to get people to the evac points. To keep the dead away from them.

Tim had been the one to find Bruce after the man missed a check in. Had been the one to pick off the growling corpses ripping bits of him out through the holes they’d managed to make in his armor. They were children at one time, and Tim nearly choked as he thought about Bruce being confronted with them. He did choke when he carefully sliced through Bruce’s spinal column at the base of his neck before he can come back. An almost automatic move by then.

Jason dug Bruce’s grave and Tim carefully wrapped him up. They were both silent as they laid him to rest, and went back into the manor. Cold and silent in ways that neither of them could deal with any more. They’d moved the food they had left to the Cave and Jason had sealed the manor up with boards. From inside and outside.

They worked closely after that. Never going off alone even though they both knew they could save more people that way. Jason never said it, but Tim could tell by the brittle look in his eyes that Jason couldn’t take another loss. They slept in the Cave on cots for all of one night before they end up on the floor. In a tangle of limbs and clutching hands as they both pretended to sleep. Pretended to not be listening to the other’s heartbeat.

The number of survivors dwindled fast, and the Lanterns pulled out slowly.

Jason had sneered when the final wave left. Had flipped off a green faced Lantern when they tried to get Jason to go. Tim had looked at the last refugees. Mostly masks. None of them took notice when Tim slipped out after Jason.

That wasn’t the last of it. Guy Gardner had tracked them down in the Cave, had told them point blank the world was dead. To give up saving it and get themselves to safety. Jason had growled and nearly threw himself at the man before Tim stepped in. Told Guy that they both knew that. Had known that from the start, and that they weren’t staying to save anything.

It was the last time they saw anyone else alive.

They patrolled. Destroyed the dead when they could and scavenged for canned food. Wandering a Gotham too quiet to be believed. Chatter came across the radio less and less frequently. They stayed in the Cave during the day out of habit. Silently maintaining the generators and equipment. Not talking about the fact that they were only putting off the inevitable. That neither of them had been able to let Gotham go even then.

It was a rotten floor that got Jason. His bitten off curse had made Tim's heart freeze, but it was the familiar unearthly moan that followed it that had Tim following the other man in a nearly blind panic. Brutally ripping the lone corpse that had obviously been barricaded in the basement off of Jason.

Too slow, too late.

Jason had stopped Tim from bandaging any of the bleeding. Had held him as Tim screamed and the world blurred in his eyes. Held on grim and silent until Tim could hear again. Jason had pushed Tim away then. Firm despite Tim not wanting to let go. He'd unholstered a gun and held it loosely in his lap.

Tim didn't protest despite the way the words burned his tongue. Jason gave him a crooked grin before bringing the gun up. Said one last thing before pulling the trigger, "Follow me."

Tim didn't bury Jason. He'd had enough of graves he'd once said when it all began. Tim brought him back to the Cave instead and laid him out deep in the complex away from the light of the main areas. 

Tim smiles and moves on. Touching each case as he passes. Damian, Steph, Cass, Bruce, Alfred. He's built them all in the days after Jason's death. Silent monuments that won't be seen by anyone ever again. Filled them with uniforms and small things. Jason's is the most crowded. Because he's had the most identities. Because his case will have to stand for two. 

Tim shrugs off his cape and folds it neatly. Places it at the bottom of the case next to the Red Robin symbol they both wore. Between the Red Hood mask and a camera that's almost as old as Tim. There aren't enough supplies left for Tim to make his own case. It's fitting in a way that would probably make Jason spitting mad.

_"Follow me."_ It'd been an order but there'd also been a plea hidden in it. Something that had made Tim's heart seize then and now. Something that made him not so sure about anything anymore. Jason would probably be mad at the thought of Tim taking one more thing from him. Probably.

Or probably not.

Tim pulls one of the guns from the case before sealing it up. It's weight heavy and unfamiliar in his hands. He takes a look around the Cave. The lights on, equipment running, and report unfinished. He leaves it all as it is and turns to head deep into the darkness away from the main part of the Cave. Following the steady pull of words and the sickly sweet stench of death.

_"Follow me."_


End file.
